About the book: 2021 / The sexual life of women has always been regulated by government and public institutions, and the attitude it says a lot about the morals and cultural norms of a particular era and country. The main plot of this collective monograph is the evolution of ideas about female sexuality in Russia during the 11th–20th centuries. Describing the everyday life of representatives of different social groups, the authors turn to a whole corpus of unique historical sources: from church collections of punishments (penances) to medical forms of Russian maternity hospitals, from court case materials to various personal documents. According to researchers, the intimate sphere of life is connected not only by external attempts at censorship, but also by the restrictions that people set for themselves. What was the difference between the sex education of noble boys and girls? How did society really treat “non-observants”—women who did not retain their virginity before marriage? How have women tried to avoid pregnancy at different times? Thanks to the answers to these and other questions, we can not only understand the sexual culture of the past, but also see the trajectories along which it will develop in the future. The authors of the book are A. Belova, N. Mitsyuk and N. Pushkareva, historians and anthropologists, members of the Russian Association of Women's History Researchers (RAIZHI).